Kathy Little Bird Read Free Page B

pregnant?”
    “I’ve told you that he didn’t know about you. But I think now he should. He belongs to an aristocratic family with wealth and influence. As a daughter you have a claim, it’s your birthright.”
    “I don’t want anything that’s his.”
    “Don’t be so quick to judge, Kathy. You already have one gift from him.”
    I looked at her questioningly.
    “Your music. Music was part of him too. He had a sweet warm baritone. Many of the songs I sang when you were little—remember? ‘Wenn i komm.’ And ‘Die Lorelei.’ I learned them from Erich.”
    This shook me. But I wouldn’t give up the resentment I felt. “If it wasn’t me that made him leave, what was it?”
    “I wouldn’t go back to Austria with him. It was that simple.”
    “But why? Why wouldn’t you?”
    Mum turned this over in her mind before answering. “The war did strange things. It made you grab what life held out to you. And that’s what I did without thinking too much about it. Then when peace came it brought a different reality. His family owned a chateau on the Bodensee. They entertained, held soirees, gave elaborate dinners. An Indian wife, Kathy?”
    “Why not?”
    She smiled. “Maybe now, in this generation. But I doubtit. Europe is not as egalitarian as we are on this continent, and even here—”
    “Maybe I will show up on his doorstep sometime. It might be fun.” With my blond hair and fair complexion no one would suspect I was almost half Cree. I did have my Mum’s eyes, though; they didn’t go with my face, they were coal black and stormy. They held a hint. They told a tale.

    W HEN summer came Mum was better, and I wasn’t needed around the house much. There was a stream by Abram’s house, and we spent a lot of time on our bellies shooting at tin cans floating down. We took turns with Jellet’s BB gun. He kept it in the hall closet and the pellets in the top drawer of the chiffonier. At first Abram regarded the gun with true Mennonite horror, but once he got used to the kick it gave your shoulder he broke as many bottles and pinged as many cans as I did.
    But there were long stretches of time when nothing floated down the stream. And these were the times Abram brought to my attention the odd bits of knowledge he delighted in. For instance, the Sargasso Sea. I didn’t know there was such a sea. “It’s a body of water that lies like a huge lake in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean where the Gulf Stream flows into the colder waters coming from the north. It gets the name Sargasso from the grass that covers the surface of the water. But in spite of this kelplike covering, the area is a desert.”
    “How can water be a desert?” I objected.
    “A desert is where life is extinguished. There are no fish, no seals, no crustacea, no birdlife.”
    “A desert of water,” I marveled.
    “Right. And this desert is seven miles deep.”
    “Seven miles of watery desert,” I echoed, imagining seven miles of straight-down misery.
    That very night Jellet was waylaid by a couple of toughs he had thrown out of his bar, and given a bad beating. He looked awful, like something from the bottom of the Sargasso. He asked Mum to manage the bar for one night. I went along in case she needed backup, and as a result soon had an exciting story to tell Abram.
    The patrons were Eight Bells regulars, a rough-and-ready sort. Because they were regulars and knew I was the owner’s daughter, they tended, after their first amazement at seeing females on the premises, to be respectful. Mum was Mrs. Jellet and I was Missy. They kept their raucous stories low key and their feet off the tables. There were First Nation guys too, but they sat by themselves, and were serious drinkers. Mum served at the bar and I brought orders to the tables.
    It was a different experience for me, stepping into an all-male world of booming laughs and guttural curses I couldn’t quite hear. It was an atmosphere of high good humor and companionship. Something a